


Where Great Cities Rise

by slasher48



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slasher48/pseuds/slasher48
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo ran away, but not far enough. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Great Cities Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Fiction. Fan fiction. Based upon what was created by: fans of the Facebook story who turned it into a book, and the fans of that book who turned it into a movie, and the fans of that movie who turned it into one sexy man pining after an equally sexy man (or vice versa).
> 
> AN: FOR THE TSN-A-THON. IN LUST WE TRUST.

Eduardo never realizes how very stupid it was not to go away, go  _home_ , just get out of there, until the day he looks into the fridge and sees...well, nothing.  
  
Because going grocery shopping, no matter how badly it was needed in the hermits' hovel that houses the 'next big thing' (Mark or Facebook, take your pick), is a really fucking stupid idea when you're hiding.  
  
It slams into sharp focus like the last moment before you feel a car crash into your own, just jolts him that way, the moment he sees Ian. Intimidatingly beautiful with a saccharine smile and fists that look less than formidable (but hurt with enough force behind them, Eduardo knows from experience), he's not changed at all; it's only been a month. Eduardo feels his skin shiver just looking at him, and even as Mark is looking through the freezer for the ice cream Dustin pestered them for for hours before they left, it's almost like all the hidden marks this man made on Eduardo start throbbing at the same time at the sight.  
  
Mark seems far less observant than he actually is; he picks up on things he considers relevant and files away the rest until it hurts him, especially anything conventional. Eduardo knows this from a month of living practically on top of him, spending every waking moment within reach of his presence and having nothing to do but watch him like a bug in a Petri dish.  
  
So of course he notices.  
  
Ian picks up on Eduardo's fear like he's fucking supernatural and beelines for where they're standing; Eduardo wants to run, tries to, but Mark's quick grip on his wrist stills his attempt and his sharp blue eyes narrowing on Eduardo's face keeps him there.  
  
"Wardo. You're not leaving yet, not when you're the one who whined for this damn trip to begin with."  
  
Eduardo swallows and, his body sensing Ian almost behind him, inhales shakily, even as he nods. He can't resist Mark, for different reasons than he couldn't with Ian but ones just as dangerous, so when Mark says  _you're not_  Eduardo pretends he never even had the thought to do something. It's kind of a problem.  
  
Especially when Mark is being this intent on him: staring into him the same way Eduardo has seen him assess the websites he considers (barely) competition, trying to dissect them so he can understand what makes them (and Eduardo, now) work the way they do, and meet that head-on.  
  
"There's a man coming up behind you and it's making you uncomfortable," he says quietly, gently pulling Eduardo closer to him and further from Ian's approaching figure. Eduardo nods helplessly, and Mark's eyes narrow to slits.  
  
"I'd like to know why, Wardo, and I'd like to know if it might have something to do with the way you keep looking at me holding your arm."  
  
Eduardo swallows hard and winces involuntarily when he hears his name from behind him. Mark's eyes flick minutely from Eduardo's flinch to Ian and his mouth tightens, in the same manner it had last night when Dustin shucked code for a club and a pretty girl. If he were anybody else, he would recognize they should get out of the situation; but he's Mark, and Mark will not accept a situation he does not understand.  
  
"Hey! Eduardo, baby, been looking for you everywhere." It takes every bit of will Eduardo has in him to smile and turn around rather than hide behind Mark's cold gaze and (he can already tell they're coming) cutting words.  
  
"Ian. Hello. How are you?"  
  
"Can't complain, y'know. I do miss you a lot though." Ian effortlessly slides his charm into the conversation, and even if he's not got a hand on Eduardo yet, it feels a bit like his words might. Mark senses something's off and Eduardo feels him bristle behind him.  
  
 _So that's how it is then_ . Eduardo can almost hear him say it.  
  
And just as he opens his mouth to tell Mark to leave it and they can just come back for the ice cream later, Ian notices the shorter man slightly behind him and raises one bushy blond eyebrow.  
  
"Who's your friend, babe?"  
  
He gets no chance from either of them to answer. Mark takes a careful, confident step forward and holds a hand for Ian to shake and Eduardo watches helplessly as he practically snaps Ian's wrist with his abrupt handshake.  
  
"Mark Zuckerberg. I take it you know about as much about me as I do about you, then."  
  
Ian's brows furrow and Eduardo almost visibly flinches as he nods.  
  
"Ian Graff. Eduardo and I are dating."  
  
He's so clearly taken aback by the hostile glare Mark aims his way after these words -- no less than Eduardo, and that's saying something -- that it's as though Mark dealt him an actual blow.  
  
"Ah. I hadn't noticed he was...attached like that."  
  
Ian shrugs, but Eduardo can tell it's forced, and it appears Mark can as well -- though he doesn't show a second of it -- because he falls back effortlessly toward Eduardo, as though it were always his plan.  
  
"It's not like we were exclusive; it was all up to Eduardo, actually. Right, babe?" And Eduardo knows his smile is tighter, that  _Bullshit_ is written all over his face; he never learned how to hide his thoughts the way Ian does.  
  
"Yeah, and well, I think I'm going to be exclusively --"  _mine_ , is his first thought, but it's not enough, it won't be enough, so he slips a hand over Mark's hip, hesitantly, looking around like he's worried someone besides them will see, and nudges closer to him.  
  
"--Exclusively Mark's." The little look Mark gives him out the corners of his eyes tells him he's got explaining to do later, but for now, he has an ironclad reason (if one that's visibly shaken Ian and is scaring Eduardo when he doesn't react) to stay away.  
  
Mark, impeccably unruffled as always, just shrugs.  
  
"You did say it was Wardo's choice."  
  
Ian's eyes flash at the nickname, at the familiarity of it, and Eduardo leans on Mark's side a little, thankful he's pushed past Mark's instinctive recoil from touch, without even thinking about it. Because those flashes never precede good things, never have.  
  
But he plays heartbroken well, swallowing hard and gently laying a hand on Eduardo's shoulder he _almost_ doesn't shake off. Not immediately anyway.  
  
"Really, baby? But I was so good to you."  
  
Eduardo opens his mouth to refute that utterly horrifying lie, but Mark gets there first; Eduardo catches his lips turning up into a slight smirk as he says, flatly,  
  
"I just must have been better."  
  
In any other situation, Eduardo would laugh. As it is, he stifles all amusement and pulls Mark away from Ian, where he's defiantly meeting his eyes from his stature at least a foot shorter than Ian's.  
  
"That's right. C'mon,  _querido_ , we've got to get milk that doesn't look like some kind of scientific experiment and cheese for Dustin and Andrew to grill."  
  
Mark nods, one motion that nobody but Eduardo ever catches, and gently pats Eduardo's hand before he pokes it off of his thigh. He seems to enjoy irking Ian a bit too much, glancing at him with a curious glint to his eyes before he rises on his toes to whisper in Eduardo's ear,  
  
"I'll meet you there. I don't think Ian and I are done talking yet."  
  
Eduardo's worried -- he shakes his head at Mark, glancing at the puppyish expression Ian wears that only just hides the anger lurking underneath and then back at Mark's minuscule figure, picturing all that anger taken out on that flimsy body, so much smaller in Mark's trademark hoodie and flip-flops -- but Mark rolls his eyes and just shoos him, so he goes.  
  
...Just far enough to get out of the aisle and still hear.  
  
"I don't know who you are and I don't care, but you bother Wardo and I won't tolerate it."  
  
"Who the fuck do you think you are, man? I've never even seen you before and all of a sudden you're the love of his life? I don't think so. It's bullshit."  
  
Eduardo winces, hoping Mark won't give them away, because it  _is_ but Eduardo needs the explanation to work, just this once, just until he can get out of this store and back to the house Ian doesn't know he's found to live in, with Mark.  
  
"No more bullshit than you being  _good_ to him. He hasn't mentioned you at all in a month and he looks like  _prey_ when you're around. He's less scared of poisonous snakes."  
  
"So what? It's none of your business; he'll drop you and come back to me soon enough. Who the fuck would stay with  _you_ , geek-boy?"  
  
Eduardo almost steps back into the aisle, out of where he's hidden nearby, when Ian says that. Mark hates being reminded of that particular insult, and everything in him wants to protect Mark from it.  
  
"Eduardo would, apparently," Mark shoots back.  
  
"For now," Ian snarls, and Eduardo recoils, shaking a little, not having missed that sound at all. His knees are a little buttery and weak just knowing Ian is fighting for him so close to where he stands.  
  
"Listen. Wardo is quite plainly worth ten of you; if you're that unworthy, you'll stay away from him, understand? This conversation is over and so is whatever you had with him."  
  
Eduardo hears the slap of Mark's flip-flops confidently moving away from Ian and has to repress the urge to cheer. He hightails it to the dairy aisle and Mark is there, giving him a  _look_ when he huffs a little after running so fast.  
  
"Who's that, Wardo, and why did I just pretend to steal you from him? I want an honest answer and I will ask until I get one."  
  
Eduardo sits heavily on the edge of the shelves nearest Mark and swallows, glancing just to make sure Ian's nowhere around before whispering,  
  
"He's my ex, and that's the only way I could break up with him, Mark. If I didn't have somebody else he'd..." Eduardo shudders and, confused, watches Mark's hands fidget in his hoodie pockets, almost like he wants to comfort him (which is not a Mark thing to want).  
  
"He'd come after me."  
  
"And hit you." Mark says it so matter-of-fact, his face blank and voice not at all dark or upset, but just a look at his eyes has Eduardo sighing. He's angry, mostly at Ian, but partly at Eduardo for not saying something before this, when they've talked about so many other things they haven't (Mark especially hasn't) told anyone else.  
  
"Yeah," he mumbles, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. He aborts the movement when his shirt rubs against the bruise just under his armpit, and Mark's eyes soften in a way Eduardo hasn't ever seen before.  
  
Before he can apologize for getting Mark into this mess, feeling his cheeks flush with nervous mortification, he's suddenly, carefully, tugged into a skinny chest, spindly arms wrapping around him and Mark's nose jabbed somewhere near his shoulder, but not hard.  
  
"You won't be going back, Wardo. I'll pay one of the interns to get your things and you can move in full-time with us; they'll get extra to make sure he doesn't know where you live."  
  
His chest seizes up as Mark brushes over a scratch on his back, but he can't stop the idiotic smile that spreads over his face when he relaxes enough to hold Mark back.  
  
"Yeah? But I thought I was driving you crazy, with all my mothering, wanting you to eat and sleep and talk to me instead of code. Isn't that what you said?"  
  
Mark shrugs against him, muttering,  
  
"I'll learn to ignore you eventually. I do everyone else."  
  
Eduardo grins even more, hurting his face, burying his nose in Mark's shoulder, smelling slightly sweaty cotton and Red Bull where Eduardo knows he missed his mouth at least once.  
  
"Okay, Mark. Okay."  
  
"And...as for the rest. We'll leave that discussion for until we get home."  
  
Eduardo shoves aside the little thrill of  _home_ , said so casually, for the bigger thrill of Mark meaning what he thinks he might, his fingers tightening against the bunch of Mark's hoodie at his back.  
  
"The rest?"  
  
Mark pulls away a little jerkily and stuffs his hands back in his pockets a little too hurriedly for it to be nonchalant.  
  
"Well. I mean. There had to be some signal I must be missing for him to believe you were with me..."  
  
Eduardo chokes back a laugh, because Mark is already blushing a little and not looking at him, and he doesn't want to offend him enough so that he clams up completely. He's the type to ignore a situation that discomforts him, and Eduardo doesn't want to be ignored.  
  
Still, unable to help himself, he watches Mark even more intently than usual as they drop the conversation to shop a little while, and when they run into Ian again at the checkout counters, he smiles and leans in just slightly to peck the corner of Mark's mouth.  
  
"I'm so glad you're finally eating something substantial,  _querido_ . I was worried."  
  
It's all real affection, all truth behind those words, and he can tell Mark knows when he ducks his head and mumbles something in the affirmative as he stops meeting either Eduardo's eyes or the cashier's. Choosing to transfer the bags of groceries back into their cart almost completely silently, he doesn't say a thing until they're heading back to the beat-up rent-a-car the whole house uses for "necessary outings only".  
  
And even then, he only says, "I guess that answers a lot of my questions then, provided it's real."  
  
Eduardo laughs as they unload the cart.  
  
"It's real."  
  
And maybe he stops, a little, remembering Ian exists, when Mark freezes mid-step with the bag of fruit Eduardo forced him to buy and gapes, then starts to smile, just at the edges.  
  
Maybe he thanks him a little for being such a dick when Mark nods, decisively firm, and murmurs, more to himself than anything,  
  
"Yeah. Yes. For me too."  
  
They won't look at each other on the way home, Eduardo can already guess -- he'll be too nervous and Mark'll be too embarrassed over his uncharacteristically overt emotions -- but it's possible he might get to kiss more than the corner of Mark's mouth once they're in the privacy of the house.  
  
And that's worth just about -- hell. Anything. It's worth anything.  
  
Including Ian.


End file.
